Keen to stay friends with all your exes? You might be a psychopath

When my ex and I broke up, he declared, “I’ll always be a part of your life and you’ll always be a part of mine.” A statement that now seems as much a threat as a promise.

Our relationship spanned my late teens to early twenties and was mentally, emotionally and at times, physically abusive. When we broke up, my ex insisted on remaining in my life as a “friend” – a term I use lightly.

At the time, he’d convinced me that I needed him in my life – and in a way I did. When things were going bad for him, it was me he’d reach for.

He had a way of making me feel like the most special person in the world – albeit temporarily – because I was “the only one who truly understood him.” It wasn’t until I held a mirror up to our friendship and cut him off for good, that I was finally able to begin the process of healing.

Since then, I’ve done some reading on what’s known in psychology as the “dark triad of personality traits” which include narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. While I’m not a psychologist, I do recognize certain elements of these traits in my former partner.

The grandiosity and lack of empathy associated with narcissism. The manipulation and exploitation of others that is common to Machiavellianism. The enduring impulsivity, callousness and selfishness that characterizes psychopathy.

I always got the impression he lived by his own loose moral code, one that allowed him to lie, manipulate and take things from other people because he legitimately thought he deserved them more than they did.

In a recent study from Oakland University, psychologists Justin Mogilski and Lisa Welling wanted to see if there’s any correlation between "dark personality traits" — e.g., narcissism, duplicity, psychopathy — and involvement with exes.

There are already several previous studies showing that people with these traits pick their friends for strategic reasons and prefer short-term relationships, however the researchers were curious if this was true for former lovers too.

Mogilski and Welling recruited 861 participants and asked them about their relationships with former partners. Subjects were posed a series of questions to rate the reasons they maintained relationships with exes. They were then surveyed to determine if they had dark personality traits.

In unsurprising news, the participants found to have dark personality traits were more likely to stay close to their exes for "practical and sexual reasons."

In an interview with Broadly, the narcissism expert Dr. Tony Ferretti explained why people with dark personalities — particularly the narcissistic ones — are compelled to keep close ties with former lovers.

"Narcissists hate to fail or lose, so will do what they can to maintain some connection if they didn’t make the choice to end it," he said.

According to Ferretti, dark personality types see their relationships in terms of how useful they are to them and they "may stay connected to (to exes in order to) have access to valuable resources. They also have inside information about their exes vulnerabilities and weaknesses that they can exploit and manipulate which gives them a sense of power and control.”

But that isn’t to say that all friendships between exes are toxic. I know many people – myself included – who have enjoyed healthy, supportive friendships with ex-partners. In fact, Mogilski and Wellings found that the majority of people surveyed said they stayed friends because their ex was reliable, trustworthy and/or they had a strong sentimental attachment.

As Dr. Feretti points out, “people who are in close, healthy relationships are typically more physically active, more socially connected, live longer, and are physically healthier," adding that they also "tend to be happier." So, it makes sense that we’d want to stay friends with partners after uncoupling.

However, in order for a friendship to flourish, the relationship has to be healthy, to begin with. As I’ve learned, when it comes to maintaining a friendship with an ex, you can’t build a solid foundation on shaky ground.